Harvesting fruit takes a skilled eye and mechanical precision

Already pushing that frontier, we find a Japanese university working on a robotic device to help harvest fruit as accurately as a skilled human.

The machine, which comes from a start-up connected to Utsunomiya University, gathers strawberries and is known, rather practically, as Ichigo Tsumi, or Strawberry Picking Robot.

Colour sensitive

As the key to plucking a ripe strawberry from the plant is in selecting one with the perfect red hue, the robot has a camera just underneath its arm. When it judges the fruit to be ready, it snips it off and drops it into a basket.

This being Japan, of course, the machines masters have added a cutesy touch. When it sets to work, Ichigo Tsumi pipes up: "Measuring ... oh, I found one. Starting to pick."

After favourable tests with real strawberry farmers, the university firm plans to start selling the fruit-finding robots in about two years' time. Given that they can work in darkness as well as daylight, larger strawberry farms are sure to be interested.